


ploylessness

by Jayde_Spell



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: A little pre-Oz backstory idk, Bees, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Character of Color, Implied Drug Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Miguel just needs to be on the right meds, Mild Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Reference to some possible future non con, Referenced Isolation, Referenced body horror?, Referenced death of a child, Ryan is a Shark, Scars, i think, religion and insanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 20:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17433104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jayde_Spell/pseuds/Jayde_Spell
Summary: “Treat me nice, yo. If you want me to have your back.” - MuMs de Schemer





	ploylessness

**Author's Note:**

> Non-Beta’d. New to publishing fics! Please be gentle (:

O’Reily’s been watching him. 

Miguel may be crazy, he may be stupid, but he isn’t blind. 

The hairs on the back of his neck are at a constant salute. He’s being watched. 

For what purpose, he has no idea. Since falling from grace, from El Norte, from everything that gave life meaning in here, he has no idea what the Irishman would want from him. 

All that’s left of Miguel is scar tissue. 

-

Miguel’s old roommate used to be fascinated by his scars, used to watch Miguel when he’d get changed. He’d just stare and stare and stare. 

“How’d you get that one on your bicep?” 

It doesn’t matter that most of his scars are self-inflected. At least not to him. Scars are scars are scars. 

And well, Miguel has many. 

-

They’re in the shower, Miguel in one corner of the room and O’Reily a couple showers down. 

He can feel the Mick’s eyes on him again. 

He washes himself uncomfortably. Makes himself smaller and turns so he is facing the wall. He doesn’t like being stared at. He doesn’t like it at all. It reminds him of the eyes of God. 

-

The Ayrans are giving him shit again. 

Grabbing at him as he passes down the halls, whistling and cat-calling in the cafeteria. He’s already sunk that low. He snarls and gnashes his teeth.

He’s not a maricon. Not a prag. 

He gets sent to the hole, once. He’d kicked Robson so hard in the balls that he had to have emergency surgery to retrieve them. Miguel snorts and fights a crazed smile that threatens to spill over his face. 

Thankfully, Sister Pete and Father Mukada had fought with Glyn on his side. Mental illness is a bitch but at least he’s out the hole before the day is out, and is instead put in the infirmary for the week. 

Mental illness is a bitch but Miguel is more than that. Has to be more than that. 

-

The skinheads are out for blood. 

He knows this. It’s a ticking time bomb. 

Busamalis tells him that the bells are tolling for him. 

He scratches the inside of his wrists. 

-

When Miguel is fourteen he had fallen head over heals in love with his next door neighbor. 

Lucia is taller, and older than him by three years, and is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. She was an angel.

Lucia takes no notice of Miguel, however. 

This doesn’t make him feel good and he has never been able to cope with negative feelings well.

He has opened himself up to Lucia in the purest way, he decided to show his devotion to her with blood and open wrists. He needed to get her attention somehow. Rejection was heavy and so were his eyes and oh, he could hardly keep them open now. 

-

The bells may be tolling for him, but he won’t go down without a fight. Father Mukada is on his side. He can feel his presence in his ribs, he can feel the weight of his son’s death on his shoulders and for once it doesn’t make him sick but instead makes him stand up straighter. Scars are scars are scars. And Miguel has learned to be proud of them all. 

He may be dying, but he isn’t dead yet. 

-

O’Reily’s been circling the waters again. This time - this time the Mick doesn’t seem to care about subtlety anymore. His eyes burn holes into Miguel.

He started following Miguel from the cafeteria to the infirmary. 

Always with that same sharp smile that Miguel knows means he’s up to nothing good. 

Nothing good can ever come out of this place, right? There are no angels in Oz. 

Miguel spits on the floor.

-

O'Reily has saved him. 

He doesn’t know if this was for the first time or not. 

While Miguel was walking back to the infirmary, a couple of Aryans were waiting for him. They had grabbed Miguel and shoved him headfirst into the wall. 

Miguel has never been one to go down without a fight. 

He had managed to knock two of the men away, but there were two more waiting and Miguel felt tired to his bones. 

Suddenly, the Hacks were coming around the corner and the Aryans were quick to disperse; leaving Miguel to fall into the shadows. 

O’Reily came looking for him a few minutes later. 

“Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty... Come out, wherever you are.” The Irishman whisper calls. 

Miguel feels embarrassed, all of the sudden. But O’Rielly finds him anyway. 

“You okay, hombré?” The older man smiles viscously. 

“Why do you care, O’Reily? You didn’t have to do what you did. What do you want?” Miguel says as a red flush fought and won over his face and chest. 

“No payment necessary. Just a friend helping a friend.” The older man rasps. The florescent lights of Emerald City are harsh against his pale face. Exaggerating the man’s sharp features and illuminating his dark, dark hair that has stared to grow back after the chemo. He reaches a hand out and traces Miguel’s scar that stretches across his reddening cheek.

“What’s protection between friends?”

-

When Miguel is 24 he learns that his baby boy is very, very sick.

He has never been able to cope with negative feelings well. 

“God,” he whispers. “I’m sorry for being so selfish in my life. I’m sorry for not always doing the right thing. Please, take my life for his. Take my pride for his life.”

And with that three new scars are born. Across his cheek where his ego lied. across his palm, where he first took drugs that were killing his son, and over his heart. Surely God would forgive Miguel. Surely he wouldn’t blame an innocent baby for his transgressions. 

-

“Hey amigo, I got a question for ya.” Miguel overhears O’Reily say lazily while playing cards with Beecher. 

“Hey. Miguelito, I’m talking to ya.” O’Reily huffs and taps his cards against the table. 

Miguel raises one brow in question. 

“How’d you feel about playing a round?” 

“I don’t care much for pinochle, I’m Latino.” He says with a frown. “I’ll play if someone has dominos.” 

“Nah, I think you’d be real interested in the game we’re playing here, Chica.” O’Reily snarls. 

Beecher glances up from his cards to watch the two of them interact with a blank look on his face. 

Miguel doesn’t understand what is happening. A large part of him wants to tell the Irishman to fuck off, but he can’t exactly afford getting into a fight. He’s not exactly high on the food chain right now, and with how out of character O’Reily’s been with him lately he doesn’t want to piss the man off more. 

“Sure,” he replies nonchalantly, playing it off as if he had nothing better to do. Which he doesn’t, but still. Keeping up appearances. 

He rubs his stomach absentmindedly once he’s seated. 

O’Reily tracks the movement with his icy blue eyes and leans forward in his seat abruptly, causing Miguel to lean back in his own. 

-

When Miguel is sixteen he is asked by his Brothers to do something for them. Something dangerous and stupid and might be the reason God had chose to kill his son. 

The scar. 

It rests softly between his navel and first ribs. 

It comforts him. Or something. 

\- 

O’Reily had him move to his cell. Miguel is not sure how the hell the gringo managed it.

He doesn’t want to know what he must’ve did for McManus to allow that. 

“I get top,” O’Reily smiles sharply and lazily leers at him. 

“Whatever, Puta.”

“The fuck you say to me?” 

-

Miguel tries to give the older man - and himself - privacy as often as he can. He doesn’t change his clothes until it seems as if O’Reily asleep. 

-

When Miguel is eight one of his Tio’s decide to teach him a listen.

It was all Miguel’s fault, really. He hadn’t been paying attention to what his Tío was saying. He wasn’t listening, it was his fault. 

Because of him his little cousin stepped on a hornet’s nest. Now, Miguel wasn’t watching his seven year-old cousin as closely as he should have. It was his fault Carlos got hurt. 

The humming of the bees was calming, in an odd sort of way. 

The belt hitting his back is like a constant pitch of bee stings. Leaving three long scars underneath his shoulder blades. 

-

O’Reily takes to crowding Miguel in their cell more often than not. Once the lights are out he finds any excuse, it seems like. 

Miguel’s changing when he feels O’Reily’s chest touch his back and long fingers trail quickly over his hips before retreating.

**Author's Note:**

> Obsessed with Oz. May or may not make this a series/multiple chapters. Have any of you guys seen the show Happy! (2017)? It’s on Netflix and has Chris in it and I think it’s fucking awesome. Anyways, like the fic?


End file.
